Pages

Tuesday, December 30, 2014

Tragedies like the one in Peshawar are litmus tests for any
nation- either bringing out the best, or exposing the bare bones. Pakistan’s
response is curiously similar to the U.S response to 9/11. The fact that the
U.S’s counter-terror strategy accounts for the genesis of a much more brutal
TTP and ISIS is lost to us. In the same manner as the US filled up prisons
contravening law and depriving suspects and inmates of fair judicial process in
its paranoia after 9/11, Pakistan is all set to establish special military
courts in contravention of constitutional procedure, for swift conviction of
‘terrorists.’ The horrors that were unleashed in Guantanamo, Abu Ghraib and
elsewhere in the name of national security are a forgotten narrative in the new
Pakistan post 16/12.

Our collective response to the tragedy shows a febrile
national demand for vengeance. Ironically, we are baying for the enemy’s blood
just like the enemy is baying for ours- in the process, we lose the moral high
ground we think we possess. In the process, ‘the
faces change from pig to man and man to pig, and pig to man again- and already
it is becoming impossible to say which was which.’

At present there are two extremist discourses in the
country: the first, of course, is personified by the likes of the clerics at
Lal Masjid and other fanatical groups, invoking religion to justify fanatical
militancy. This religious extremism has come handy for movements like the
Taliban who hide behind it for moral cover of their actions. There is, however,
another extremist discourse: it comes from the liberals who have joined the
chorus for an unrelenting militarist approach in response to the Peshawar
attack. This high-pitched chorus decries any counter narrative or stirring of
dissent. In the new Pakistan post 16/12, no one can take a different approach
to dealing with the problem of terrorism in Pakistan, and have their opinion
respected.

Anyone who does not take sides in these extremist discourses
and believes in giving a chance to stable peace through justice and effective
longterm peacebuilding is termed unpatriotic at best, and a
terrorist-sympathizer, even supporter more commonly. There is no room for
dissent. In this extremist furore, all hardline stances seem to have suddenly
been vindicated. The iron-fisted policies of Musharraf that helped create the
TTP are now being interpreted as farsighted wisdom. Frenzied calls for razing
madrassahs to the ground or burning down mosques no longer sound outrageous in
the spirit of febrile jingoism.

The strongly militarist strategy gives overweening powers to the army to deal
with an issue that requires a more variegated longterm approach. It is likely
to turn the country into a military state. The policy is uninsightful as it
aims to do more of the same that
created this monster, in order to eliminate it.The TTP emerged as a much more brutal and
militant force than the original Taliban movement as a result of Pakistan’s
disastrous decision to support the US in Afghanistan and sending its forces in
the tribal areas to stop support for the anti-US Afghan resistance. This made
the fiercely independent Pashtun tribes turn their guns against the Pakistan
army and state.A
renunciation of this ill-advised national policy is necessary as a first step
to heal and rebuild, even as we take necessary firm action against the
unrelenting perpetrators.Besides,
the clandestine channels of support and funding to these militant groups must
be traced and exposed before the nation. The enemy is not just the gun-toting
Taliban militant, but his trainer, financier and facilitator. These vital
connections have always been the state’s well-kept secret. And now, questions
cannot be asked as we give a free rein to the military to ‘exterminate all
brutes.’

In the
tide of this nationalistic fervour to exterminate the brutes, drone operations
in Pakistan suddenly and silently receive endorsement by national consensus.
Questions are no longer welcome about civilian casualties or other fallout of
the operation in the tribal areas. Answers are no longer deserved by the
nation. The supreme ultimate goal is invincible national security, and ‘to this
end, all means must give way.’ While the need for security is vital and
understandable, bypassing all that is legal and rational and moral ought to be
taken with a pinch of salt.

The
deeper problems have to be dealt with through a wider, more insightful
non-military approach: combating extremist discourse that misuses religion to
justify terrorism and creating an effective counter discourse; listening and
understanding, dialogue, mutual compromise and reconciliation; rehabilitation
and peacebuilding. There are numerous examples in the past- even the recent
past- of how war-ravaged communities drenched in the memory of oppression and
pain, seething with unrelenting hate, have undertaken peacebuilding with some
success. Possibilities to create the conditions that had led to ceasefires that
brought temporary respite to the nation during this war, should have been
explored with sincerity.

The series of executions after the Peshawar
tragedy is also regrettable on many counts.
Many of these convicts were juveniles when they committed the crime,
brainwashed and swayed by passions. Many had confessions extracted through
torture. These were the small fry, while the big fish have escaped the noose.
So many high profile murderers and criminals go scot free, whereas these
brainwashed juvenile offenders from an ethnic minority, a disadvantaged
background are picked out selectively for blind 'justice.' Selective justice is
injustice. Two such cases which have been highlighted by human rights groups
are that of Shafqat Hussain convicted at the age of 14, and Mushtaq Ahmed who
was tortured into a confession without being given access to a fair trial.

Our uninsightful reactionary policies reflect a loss of head
and heart in the wake of the Peshawar tragedy. In this feverish frenzy of
extremisms baying for each others blood, voices of moderation , justice and
peace are dying out. And the rest is
Silence.

Wednesday, December 17, 2014

The Peshawar school attack is an enormity that confounds the
senses. It does not help however, to dismiss the people who committed this foul
atrocity as ‘inhuman’, or to say they were not really Muslims. It is a convenient
fiction that implies a most frustrating unwillingness and inability to
understand how human beings are dehumanized and desensitized so they commit
such dastardly acts under the moral cover of a perverted religiosity.

This unwillingness and inability to understand is deeply
distressing because it shows how far away we are from even identifying what
went wrong, and where- and hence, how far we are from any solution.

The international media has reflected- not surprisingly- a
ludicrously shallow grasp of the issues in Pakistan. The CNN (and other
channels) repeatedly portrayed the incident as ‘an attack on children for
wanting to get an education. ’ In fact, the UK Prime Minister himself tweeted:
“The news from Pakistan is deeply
shocking. It's horrifying that children are being killed simply for going to
school.”This
reeks of how the media’s portrayal Malala’s story has shaped a rather
inaccurate narrative on Pakistan.

Years ago shortly after 9/11, former CIA analyst Michael Scheuer
had lamented Western politicians’ dim-witted understanding of terrorism and the
motives behind it. Scheuer highlighted how dishonestly and dangerously Western
leaders portrayed that the terrorists were ‘Against Our Way of Life’; that they
were angry over the West’s progress as some deranged barbarians battling a
superior civilization out of rank hatred. This rhetoric from Western
politicians and the media ideologized terrorism and eclipsed the fact that
terror tactics were actually a reaction to rapacious wars in Muslim (and other)
lands often waged or sponsored by Western governments. It diverted focus from
the heart of the problem and created a misleading and dangerous narrative of
‘Us versus Them’, setting global politics on a terrible ‘Clash of
civilizations’ course.

Today, I remembered Scheuer again, browsing through responses to
the Peshawar tragedy both on local social media as well as from people in
positions of power- most reflected a facile understanding of the motives of
terrorism. Scheuer had said that this misunderstanding of the motives and
objectives of terrorism was making us fail to deal with it effectively.

Explaining his motive behind the attack, the Taliban spokesman Umar Khorasani states:"We selected the army's school for the
attack because the government is targeting our families and females. We want
them to feel the pain." Certainly, this is twisted and unacceptable logic. What is most
outrageous is his attempt to give religious justification to it by twisting
religious texts. The leadership of the TTP is guilty of a criminal
abuse of religious sources to legitimize its vile motives and sell it to their
conservative Pashtun following who are on the receiving end of Pakistan’s
military offensive in the tribal areas. The TTP leaders have hands drenched in
innocent blood. Even the Afghan Taliban have rejected the use and justification
of such means by the TTP as unacceptable by any standards in an official
statement.

But I wonder at those human beings chanting Arabic religious
expressions who blew themselves up for the ‘glorious cause’ of taking revenge
from innocent unsuspecting school children. I wonder how they had gone so
terribly wrong in their humanity, their faith. Certainly, they were taken
in with the TTP’s malevolent ideological justification for the rank brutality
they committed. They perceived their miserable lives had no intrinsic worth
except in being given up to exact vengeance.

I understood too when I heard a victim student in pain, vowing
revenge. ‘I will grow up and make their coming generations learn a lesson’, he
said. In that line, I understood so much about the psychology of victimhood and
the innate need for avenging wrongdoing.

The problem with the public perception of the war in Pakistan is
that we see only part of it: we see the heartrending images from Peshawar and
elsewhere in the urban centres where terrorists have struck. But there is a war
that we do not see in the tribal north. The familiar images we see from the war
divide the Pakistani victims of this war into Edward Herman’s ‘worthy’ and ‘unworthy’
victims- both, however, are innocent. But because some victims are unworthier
than others, the unworthy victim claims worth to his condemned life in dying,
misled into thinking that death by killing others can be a vindication.

And sometimes the ones we are not allowed to see, make
themselves visible in horrible, ugly ways; they become deafeningly loud to
claim notice. And in the process, they make other victims- our own flesh and
blood... And so it is our bloody burden to bear for fighting a war that was not
ours, which has come to haunt us as our own.

The work of some independent journalists has highlighted the war
we do not see in Waziristan- their work, however, has not made it to mainstream
news. Such work has brought to light enormous ‘collateral damage’ figures. Some
independent journalists have also focused on the plight of IDPs who feel
alienated and forgotten by the Pakistani state and nation. It must be
noted, however, that there is no access to the media in the areas where the
army’s operation is going on. The news we get from the war zone is solely
through the Pakistan Army- there is, hence, absolutely no counternarrative from
Waziristan. And hence our one-sided vision eludes a genuine understanding.

This unwillingness and inability to understand reflects in our
uninsightful militarist approach to the problem in Waziristan which flies in
the face of history, refusing to learn its lessons. We cannot do more of the
same that created this monster, in order to eliminate it. The TTP emerged as a
much more brutal and militant force than the original Taliban movement as a
result of Pakistan’s disastrous decision to support the US in Afghanistan and
send its forces in the tribal areas to stop support for the Afghan resistance
from Pakistan. This made the fiercely independent Pashtun tribes turn their guns
against the Pakistan army and state. Religious edicts were given by local imams
and muftis to legitimize the tribesmen’s war against Pakistan. Foreign actors
in the region capitalized on this to destabilize the country, setting up
channels of support, training and funding to the TTP. In my understanding,
continuing more of the same policies that created the problem will only bring
us more misery.

A militarist approach, instead of eliminating the Taliban, has created the even more brutal TTP. Just like Al Qaeda gave way to the much more brutal ISIS. Even the CIA concedes in a leaked report by Matt Frankel, that this approach is inherently flawed: “Too often, high value targeting campaigns are plagued by poor intelligence, cause unnecessary collateral damage, spur retaliatory attacks, and in many cases, yield little to no positive effects on the insurgent or terrorist group being targeted. Therefore, it’s vital to understand the conditions and lessons that are more conducive to successful strategies.”The military operation in Waziristan continues with renewed vigour as we are told by official sources, of scores of 'terrorists' eliminated. There is no way to know for sure what the umbrella term 'terrorists' comprises. Even the U.S, after successfully consigning its dirty war to Pakistan, and preparing to wrap up and quit, has decided to draw a line between the 'good' and 'bad' Taliban, and sparing those who do not directly fight: "The Pentagon spokesman explained that from January 2nd, the US policy in Afghanistan would change. “What changes fundamentally, though, is (that) … just by being a member of the Taliban doesn’t make you an automatic target,” he explained.The series of executions to be meted out to convicted 'terrorists' shows how we, like the enemy we wish to fight, have to believe in blind 'justice' that keeps the violence going in a frenzied vicious cycle. We too, as a nation, are baying for bloody vengeance, unaware of the consequences. The problem is that many of these convicts were juveniles when they committed the crime, brainwashed and swayed by passions. Many. as human rights organizations have pointed out (particularly in the case of Shafqat Hussain), had confessions extracted through torture. They were begging for mercy at the time of convictions... these were the small fry, while the big fish have escaped the noose. So many high profile murderers and criminals go scot free, whereas these brainwashed juvenile offenders from an ethnic minority, a disadvantaged background are picked out selctively for 'justice.' What about the organizations and individuals behind these? Those who fund and train and misguide and abuse? Selective justice is injustice.

While the necessity of using military means to combat a real and
present danger is understood, the need for it to be backed by sound
intelligence, precisely targeted, limited in scope and time, and planned to
eliminate or at least substantively minimize collateral damage is equally
important. Any counter terrorism strategy must be acquainted with the fact that
the TTP’s structure is highly decentralized, with an ability to replace lost
leaders. Besides, the need
to efficiently manage the fallout of such an operation and rehabilitate
affectees cannot be overemphasized. On all these counts, we need to have done
more.

The most vital understanding is that military operations are
never the enduring solution. Pakistan’s sophisticated intelligence machinery
needs to trace the channels of support to terrorists and exterminate these
well-entrenched, clandestine networks. Moreover, the bigger, deeper problems have to
be dealt with through a wider, more insightful non-military approach: combating
extremist discourse that misuses religion to justify terrorism and creating an
effective counter discourse; listening and understanding, dialogue, mutual
compromise and reconciliation; rehabilitation and peacebuilding. There are
numerous examples in the past- even the recent past- of how war-ravaged
communities drenched in the memory of oppression and pain, seething with
unrelenting hate, have undertaken peacebuilding with some success. There have
been temporary respites in this war in Pakistan whenever the two sides agreed
to a ceasefire. That spirit ought to have lasted.

I understand that this sounds unreasonable on the backdrop
of the recent atrocity, but there is no other way to stem this bloody tide.
Retributive justice using force will prolong the violence and make more
victims. In a brilliant article by Dilly Hussain in Huffington Post, the
writer states: “There has to be a conjoined effort towards a
political solution uncontaminated of American interference, and an aim to
return to the stability prior to the invasion of Afghanistan. A ceasefire which
will protect Pakistan from further destabilisation and safeguard it from the
preying eyes of external powers is imperative. An all-out war of extermination
against TTP will only prolong the costly 'tit-for-tat' warfare that has
weakened Pakistan since the US-led war on terror.”

Since religion is often appealed to in this conflict, its role
in peacebuilding has to be explored and made the best of. To break this
vicious, insane cycle, there has to be a revival of the spirit of ‘Ihsan’ for a
collective healing- that is, not indiscriminate and unrelenting retributive
justice but wilful, voluntary forgiveness (other than for the direct,
unrepentant and most malafide perpetrators). This must be followed by
long-term, systematic peacebuilding, rehabilitation and development in
Pakistan’s war-ravaged tribal belt in particular and the entire nation in
general. Such peacebuilding will involve religious scholars, educators,
journalists, social workers and other professionals. Unreasonable as it may
sound, it is perhaps the only enduring strategy to mend and heal and rebuild.
The spirit of ‘Ihsan’ has tremendous potential to salvage us, and has to be
demonstrated from both sides. But because the state is the grander agency, its
initiative in this regard is instrumental as a positive overture to the
aggrieved party.

But this understanding seems to have been lost in the frenzy,
just when it was needed most pressingly. I shudder to think what
consequences a failure to understand this vital point can bring. The Pakistani
nation has already paid an enormously heavy price.

Tuesday, December 9, 2014

A good deal has been said about ISIS being a grotesque
travesty of Islam and a defiant rejection of all that is commonly held to be
moral and humane. Islamic scholars from a variety of denominations have come
forward with a single voice to condemn it as a grave wrong, and this of
course was vital and timely. However, condemnation alone misses a vital point; it
flatly rests on the surface of a much deeper phenomenon.

It is more helpful to engage in an effort to understand-
because when groups like ISIS emerge, we are warned that something about our
collective humanity has gone terribly wrong. When human
beings take up ruthless violence against one another, it shakes our faith in
humanity. And yet the perpetrators and oppressors are not any less human than
the rest of us- so what disfigured our humanity that we became capable of
systematically inflicting pain on others and then celebrating it in the name of ideology?

Phenomena like ISIS are not rare in human history. But to
begin to solve a recurring problem we do not need to just condemn, but to understand.
A serious and honest effort at understanding is essential because when we engage in it we
identify the deep-seated grievances and pent-up feelings of being wronged
without redress that fuel the vicious cycle of reactionary violence.

But understanding becomes difficult when we ‘otherize’ and
then condemn the ‘other’ whom we have created in our morally superior
self-perception. The interconnectedness of a globalized world shows the error
in viewing phenomena in isolation from contexts and other events- contemporary
or historical. So much of what we see happening today can somehow or the other
be traced to events that took place in the recent or not-so-recent past.

It certainly adds a deeper dimension to our understanding to
remind ourselves that ISIS was born in the detention camps of the US in Iraq, and
got recruits from refugee facilities during and shortly after the US invasion. This
gives the context to the radicalization of many of the human beings who now associate
themselves with the group.

Lest we forget, Iraq was invaded in 2003 on an utterly false
pretext of the threat of what was virtually a dysfunctional and
impotent weapons programme. The official strategy of the invasion was ‘Shock
and Awe’, which explicitly called for ‘paralyzing the country... destroying
food production, water supplies and infrastructure’; the strategy involved the
use of chemical weapons- white phosphorus, to name one- in civilian areas which
has so far led to hundreds of thousands of stillbirths and birth defects other
than instant fatalities. 740,000 women are war widows, 4.5 million were
rendered homeless. Hundreds of thousands were made refugees during the brutal
invasion of Fallujah alone that left 70% of the town’s buildings completely
destroyed. Prison abuse and torture by US soldiers in Iraq has been brought to
light, but so much remains still shrouded in history’s oblivion. But while mass
deception may hide this narrative from public perception, it lives and rankles
in the memories and consciousness of the victims and the witnesses. As the African proverb goes, 'The Axe forgets what the Tree remembers.'

When disempowered human beings are subjected to ignominious
occupation and oppression, they will seek redress in militant, often frenzied
ways; they will cling on to ideologies that legitimize and glorify the revenge
which they believe is the vent. The direct experience of torture and killing
desensitizes sensibilities from the use of violence on others, and routinizes
it.

The mistake we make is when we locate the root of the
problem with violent groups in the ideology they associate themselves with. In doing so,
we fail to see the roots that run deeper. Violent ideologies triumph in violent
contexts.

When we condemn such groups and vow to strike back with
force against them, we again miss the point that to stem violence we need to
understand what fuels it- and in most cases, what fuels it is not ideology but the
ignominy of defeat and oppressive occupation. Ideology helps later to corroborate,
legitimize and sanctify. Hence military operations against such organizations
have not yielded stable and enduring peace.

At the terrible risk of being judged as the devil’s
advocate, I dare to understand that it
may at times and in part be the work of our own hands that nurtures extremist
violence . As long as such wrongs continue to be done to human
beings by the powerful, violent groups seeking lost pride will continue to proliferate in
multifarious forms- sometimes as Khmer Rouge, sometimes as ISIS or as the
undiscovered many who may just be in various stages of their genesis that
contemporary global politics fosters.

Tuesday, October 14, 2014

Notwithstanding its stated agenda, ISIS has managed to put
the conversation on Islam right at the centre of the global discourse. From celebrities to con artists
to apologists and Muslim scholars, all have their two cents to share on Islam.
Mr Ali A.Rizvi in his ‘Open Letter to Moderate Muslims’ published in The
Huffington Post has called for
‘reforming’ Islam. He writes that Muslim moderates inadvertently defend ISIS when
they attempt to defend Islam against allegations of violence and backwardness-
because ISIS follows most closely and literally the contents of Islam’s most
sacred texts. Moderates are at pains to explain away ISIS’s actions as
‘unIslamic’ through interpretation and contextualization of the sources of
Islam. Given the accessibility of information in this day and age, religion is
no longer shrouded in sacred mystery. Once the awareness of the sources of
religion explicitly sanctioning violent practices spreads, Rizvi argues,
sustaining faith in the indubitability and infallibility of the Quran would be
difficult.

There is a problem at the heart of Rizvi’s thesis: for
starters, he presumes that faith in Islam survives and thrives because its
adherents are unaware of its actual content due in part to the unfamiliarity
with Arabic and inaccessibility of information about its literal content. In one
fell sweep Mr Rizvi declares all faithful Muslims to be largely unaware of the
violent and diabolical contents of their religion- which, if brought into the
light of day, will expose the degenerate ethos of their religion and put its
naive believers to abject shame.

Most Muslims as a matter of faith do in fact take their
religious sources quite literally, yet do not conclude from it what ISIS does. Moderates like Reza Aslan
who call for a liberal reinterpretation and metaphorical/allegorical reading of religious content are but few. And
yet these billions of faithful and several hundreds of trained Islamic scholars
who take the Quran and hadith quite literally hold firmly to the conviction
that Islam is indeed ‘a religion of peace’. How do they arrive at this
generalization in the face of the actual literal texts of Islam that seem to
imply everything but that?

The problem with both
Rizvi’s thesis as well as ISIS is that both have lost sight of the ‘middleness’
that defines Islam. Muslim moderates too, when they put modernist
interpretation over the letter of the Quran to explain away violent meanings
the extremists may derive, lose sight of this. The essence of Islam is ‘adl’
and ‘tawazun’: (balance and middleness). The sources of Islam have contents
endorsing the use of force such as in the sources Rizvi cites in his article-
however, these very same sources also contain teachings that
command and celebrate peacemaking, justice, kindness, upholding of rights among other things. Looking at it purely quantitatively, the latter far
outweighs the former. The balance between these two sets of teaching is to be
found in order to develop the true Islamic worldview which mediates between the
two. This poised, comprehensive understanding does not need the prop of
reinterpretation, but understands that religion defines for us the extremities-
conduct in warfare through teachings of firmness and courage against the enemy
in war and strife, as well as, on the other end, teachings on forbearance and
kindness and mercy at all other times.

As
a teacher on Islam, I often feel the need to explain to my students the
apparent discrepancy between the examples of Prophet Muhammad (SAW)’s
forgiveness and mercy like the one at the Conquest of Makkah in which he
declared general pardon, and the instances when retributive justice and
execution of penal law or punitive measures were carried out. The two instances
stand for and delineate the two extremities of what our responses to wrong can
range from. The former stands for Ihsan
(unconditional good, more than what is justly due) and the latter for Adl
(absolute justice). While the latter is a necessary element a society must be
based on, the former- Allah tells us- is the superior virtue. The variation in
the Prophetic example leaves it to his followers to decide when and in what
circumstances each of the two is to be chosen as our response. Wisdom is to be
able to make that choice correctly, depending on the nature and gravity of the
situation one needs to respond to, the context and the likely consequences of
our choice.

To glean this holistic, seasoned vision is what Islam calls
‘hikmah’ (wisdom). When ‘hikmah’ is absent, the resultant understanding is
superficial, errant, flippant and unfair. That is precisely the mistake both
ISIS and Rizvi’s ‘Open Letter’ have made.

Another vital insight is that law and commandments exist for
and are bound by core ethical principles and values. Penal laws do not
operate detached from the ethical base and moral foundation. The laws of Islam
have to be understood holistically as guardians of the values that are the very
heart of the matter. Dissociated from the ethical content, they seem to be the
brutal and barbaric edicts that ISIS and Rizvi make them out to be.

The Quran says, ‘So give good tidings to My servants; those who listen to the
Word, and follow the best (meaning) in it: those are the ones whom Allah has
guided, and those are the ones endued with understanding.’ (39:17-18)Innumerable Quranic verses and ahadith are very explicit- whether taken
literally or figuratively- about the doing of good, delivering justice, making
peace, holding firm to what is true, keeping promises, being kind and gentle
etc. It is injustice to the Quran to pick out a few of its verses revealed in
specific circumstances - which are to be applied in those specific
circumstances within certain conditions, and take them to represent the entire
ethos of the Islamic religion, eclipsing its much larger content on humane and
egalitarian values. If these values were put at the core and followed as
zealously as the letter of the law is feverishly applied by fanatical groups,
Muslim societies today would come to epitomize the highest and worthiest in human
civilization. With reference to these much more numerous and substantive contents of Islam,
would following the very literal teaching of the Quran and sunnah engender
anything but universal justice and goodness? Rizvi’s premise is clearly
one-eyed. It does not hold ground.

Yet another problem is when Mr
Rizvi calls for an Islamic Reformation on the pattern of the Jewish and
Christian Reformation in the secular modern West. He is impressed with the fact
that Christians and Jews can reject the violent contents of their scriptures and
still retain faith and be considered part of their religious communities. There
always have been serious doubts and questions about the authenticity and
credibility of the contents of these scriptures even from within those
religious traditions, and this takes away the concept of their infallibility.
Yet there has been no such challenge of any serious proportions to the
authenticity of the Quran’s content. The Quran begins hence: “This is the Book about which there is no
doubt, a guidance for those conscious of Allah.” (2:2)

The call to ape the secular
reformation model is fundamentally problematic as it reeks strongly of
eurocentrism built on the neo-imperialist belief of the inherent superiority of
the Western model. Karen Armstrong has takenissue with those in the developed West who criticize ISIS
while failing to understand the dynamics and lessons of history that have led
to the rise of groups like ISIS. She writes,‘Many secular thinkers now regard
“religion” as inherently belligerent and intolerant, and an irrational,
backward and violent “other” to the peaceable and humane liberal state – an
attitude with an unfortunate echo of the colonialist view of indigenous peoples
as hopelessly “primitive”, mired in their benighted religious beliefs. There are
consequences to our failure to understand that our secularism, and its
understanding of the role of religion, is exceptional... when we look with
horror upon the travesty of Isis, we would be wise to acknowledge that its
barbaric violence may be, at least in part, the offspring of policies guided by
our disdain.’

The broken lens
Mr Ali A.Rizvi views the world from is a tainted one. This takes away from him
credibility as a well-meaning reformist offering prescriptions and fixes for
the ailing Muslim world. The prescription for reforming Muslim society lies
within Islam’s own ethos.

Saturday, June 14, 2014

‘Shariah’ (Islamic law) has become one of the most spine chilling,
sensational words in contemporary lexicon. In the United Kingdom with its
sizeable Muslim population, fear of the Shariah is palpable as we hear of
alarmist articles about ‘creeping shariah’ all over the UK, concern over the
proliferation of halal meat or veils. Often the fear is irrational, used by
xenophobes, racists and supremacists who resent multiculturalism and are uncomfortable
with diversity.

But it is not just the
Islamophobes and sensationalist media con artists who make the Shariah seem
grotesque and terrifying. The spurious ‘caliphate’ of sorts run by the ISIS in
Iraq and its bloodcurdling atrocities in the name of Shariah. Nigeria’s Boko
Haram has followed suit with its brutal misogynistic practices. Groups like
this which deface and defile the Shariah’s sanctity continue to proliferate all
over the crisis-ridden Muslim world.

And yet, crazy as this sounds, the demand for Shariah is not just
understandable and legitimate but also an aspiration shared by an overwhelming
majority of Muslims worldwide. The PEW Research Centre’s 2013 surveyfinds that most Muslims
are deeply committed to their faith and want its teachings to shape not only
their personal lives but also their societies and politics. Many express a
desire for shariah to be recognized as the official law of their country. Solid
majorities in most of the countries favour the establishment of shariah,
including 99% of Muslims in Afghanistan, 71% of Muslims in Nigeria, 72% in
Indonesia, 74% in Egypt, 84% in Pakistan and 89% in the Palestinian
territories.

To make sense of this, one needs to understand that
the Prophet (SAW) was a successful head of state and lawgiver, and that in
statehood did Islam find culmination as an established system and way of life.
The Islamic State flourished and ruled over continents for centuries. In fact,
for most of Islam’s history before the colonization of Muslim lands, Islamic
law was established as the law of the land. This has left an indelible impact
on Muslim collective imagination, imbuing it with nostalgia in the narrative of
a bygone glory.

The introduction of ‘Anglo Muhammadan Law’ in
British-ruled South Asia and the displacement of traditional Muslim fiqhi
madhabs (juristic schools) in favour of colonial legal systems in other parts
of the Muslim world has intensified this nostalgia. The decadence in post
colonial Muslim societies is seen now as the result of the absence of Shariah
law. Given the fact that many areas across the Muslim world writhe under
oppression, tyranny and the systematic suppression of religious aspirations by
corrupt secular regimes, this nostalgic longing has at times fuelled militancy
and violence by rebel groups. The demand for Shariah is used by these militant
and violent Islamist movements vying for political control and power. Secular
political ambitions are sanctified with the holy battlecry for the restoration
of Shariah law.

‘Whose Shariah?’, however, is a contentious, tricky
question we do not have many answers to- but it is the very heart of the matter.
The implications of this are seriously damaging to the wider interests of
Islam.

Invoking religion and using religious rhetoric
gives a religious colour to the violent, attention-seeking tactics used by
these groups. Hence Islam is perceived as either intrinsically violent or with
a dangerous potency to fuel religious violence. Simplified, reductionist
stereotypes of Islam and Muslims are strengthened. This makes harder the task
of peacemakers, healers and arbiters engaged in toning down the precarious
polarization between Islam and ‘the West.’

The media shows such violence and militancy as
essentially religious, not seeing it for its secular-materialist socio
political underpinnings or the raw drive for winning power to redress perceived
disempowerment by fringe groups.

Speaking of Boko Haram and ISIS, it has been
heartening to see Muslim opinion leaders and scholars speak out against their
methods, emphatically dissociating these from mainstream Islam. However, highly
needful as it was, what was found wanting was a more specific refutation of the
textual basis from where such actions of such groups seek justification.

In fact, there is a vital and basic understanding
almost missing from Muslim collective consciousness- that many minutiae of
Islamic law are rooted in cultural context. They were neither revealed laws nor
stipulated as universal, absolute unalterable laws by divine will. The Quran
and sunnah directly address and legislate for a few matters, and these texts
are but few compared to the entire volume of Islamic juristic literature which
was compiled and developed over the historical evolution of Islamic
civilization.

The fairly modest content of Islamic laws in the Quran
and sunnah means that for deriving the rest of the laws recourse has to be made
to jurisprudence through scholarly consensus over the ages. More importantly,
it means that such lawmaking has to be guided and inspired by the essence and
ethical guideline of the principles of the Quran and sunnah.

That egalitarianism, establishment of justice,
protection of rights and an interest in ending human misery to make possible higher
ethical and spiritual functions of human existence is a core objective of Islam
cannot be doubted. Islam had to deal with a society in which slavery- predating
Islam- was a basic social institution. Islam regulated it by law, defining
parameters and setting ethical guidelines. Wars involved sexual abuse
victimizing women of the enemy side. Here too Islam set down rights and
responsibilities to prevent such abuse. It is this humane dimension and ethical
orientation Islam gave which shines through and endures over these temporal pre
Islamic cultural traditions and practices. In this day and age when human
progress has achieved the legal abolition of slavery and its associated
practices, it is utterly ludicrous to invoke these ancient traditions as part
of Islam. The rights of people recognized and protected in this day and age are
sacred to Islam which teaches supremacy of law and human progress through
constant social reform. Violating these established principles on which a
silent global consensus exists, is sinful. It is important here to remind
ourselves of the fact that the Prophet (SAW) wistfully remembered the signing
of a pre Islamic document of rights (Half ul Fazul) and expressed his full
endorsement of it as a prophet of Islam.

The failure of contemporary Muslim jurisprudence has
been the inability to put the spirit at the core of the letter of the law and
to make Muslims understand that the law exists to protect the essential values;
that it is the protection of those values that are the heart of the matter,
while laws are often bound by culture and historicity. This explains the
unseeing literalism and fanaticism for restoring the letter of the Shariah in
corrupt and decadent Muslim societies and the preoccupation with juristic
nitpicking in the Muslim world.

It is the crisis of authority in the Muslim world due
to which random groups pining for the return of Muslim glory make bold claims
as to what constitutes Shariah law and give their own misconstrued versions
tracing them back to sacred texts or early Muslim culture. Those who got
together to condemn ISIS and Boko Haram’s actions as unIslamic must also with a single
voice present a blueprint of Islamic law that is relevant, practical and
applicable today, in tune with contemporary cultural and socio political
context. It is a long haul, but unless such a juristic magnum opus is initiated,
twisted, grotesque and soulless versions of ‘Shariah’ will keep haunting us
like a spectre. Authority as to who interprets religious law and how has to be
won back.

Abdal Hakim Murad
(Tim Winter) writes of the plight of the Nigerian schoolgirls:

“... the whole atrocity underscores the crisis of
leadership which is now a grave problem for global Islam. The Boko Haram
abductions have been condemned by all the traditional authorities: Nigeria’s
chief sultan, the grand muftis of Egypt and Saudi Arabia, the leading Islamic
universities, the main Islamic bodies here in Britain. It’s been a moment of
unity. Unfortunately, we can’t pretend that it has helped. For the last decade
or so, across the Muslim world small but ferocious factions have defied the
traditional leaders and taken religion into their own hands. In every case the
result has been a disaster for communities and even whole countries. The use by
these factions of religious rhetoric to validate what is often a political or
economic grievance has left many religious leaders at a loss. In some cases the
imams have been assassinated for speaking out against the extremists; this has
happened in Nigeria, as elsewhere. So what should they do? The founder of Islam had no time for extreme
zealotry. ‘May the fanatics perish,’ he once commented. If he detected extreme
or hateful behaviour in anyone he would condemn it immediately. Present-day
leaders recall this, as they struggle to find ways of fighting terrorism.So this scandal cuts more deeply. How to restore
the authority of the mainline leadership, among embittered young men who trust
no-one? Spies and bullets will not, in the long term, defeat these aberrations:
the religious leadership must find some way of regaining its moral authority in
an age of rapid change and rampant injustice.”

If the ethical
spirit of Muslim law is not reinstated, if the textual bases for inhuman,
brutal and violent practices not refuted, routine condemnations from Islam’s
defenders will serve no more than as rhetorical generalisations.

Friday, May 2, 2014

While the ‘Happy British Muslims’ video would not have in
itself elicited a response more than a fleeting bemused scepticism, it was
impossible to get over it and move on, given the 2 million youtube views, the reams
of commentary and discussion it generated. The short clip apparently became the
biggest issue in the issue-ridden Muslim world, judging by social media
ratings. Ardent supporters of the attempt to showcase Muslims in the West as
adaptable and ‘happy’ people, as well as bitter opponents of such meaningless
and inappropriate depiction of Muslims, all jumped into the fray- soon enough,
there was a raging storm in a teacup.

It all signifies the contradictions, polarities,
sensitivities and contentions rife in the Muslim world- like a bubbling,
gurgling, steaming cauldron.

The video aims to present an image of Muslims in the West as
flexible, creative, adaptable, well-integrated, cheerful and positive-minded,
so as to dispel negative stereotypes that have dominated public imagination in
the West since 9/11. Imam Johari Abdul Malik from the US comments on the video:
‘The narrative about Muslims is so often
about being hungry and angry, people have started turning it around using the
social media...’

Underlying this, however, there can also be sensed a desperate
attempt to assure that ‘we are like you, too’- a desire to be accepted, owned
and integrated into Western society. This desperation can be understood in the
context of the consistently rising Islamophobia in these societies.

However, the problem with this appeasing, placatory attitude
is not so much with Muslims as it is with Western societies. These societies
seem to be growing increasingly ethnocentric, losing willingness to embrace
diversity and to allow distinct ethnic, cultural and religious identities to
survive and thrive without either being compelled to Westernize to be able to
integrate, or being socially marginalized. This goes against the essence of the
values of pluralism, tolerance and coexistence at the heart of Western liberal
tradition that it prides itself in. It is ironical and interesting to note that
while the ‘Happy British Muslims’ video was doing the rounds, Tony Blair
reminded the leaders of the Western nations to ‘move the battle against
Islamist extremism to the top of the political agenda.’ The same day that the
video was released, the English Defence League held a demonstration outside
London’s largest mosque against Islam in Britain. On this backdrop, given the
very grave challenges that beset the Muslim world, attempts like the ‘Happy British
Muslims’ video appear little more than pathetic. The efficacy of the video
message as a response to a pervasive anti-Muslim campaign is highly
questionable.

But that is not the only troubling thought. Equally
disconcerting, if not more was the impulsive and inane, utterly dispensable
video rejoinder to ‘Happy British Muslims’ video, made by some Islamic groups
on the internet titled ‘Happy Muslims, HALAL version.’ This video removed the
images of all women and re-released it as acceptable by Islamic standards-
minus the laughing, clapping, singing females. This reflects a lopsided,
immature and almost obsessive fixity on juristic intricacies of Muslim law
without even a cursory understanding and appreciation of the spirit of Islam.
Such fiqh-obsessed shallow-mindedness is often manifested in moral panics among
Muslims over the visibility of Muslim women.

It is deplorable that the makers of the ‘Halal’ version who
deservedly educed ridicule and censure utterly failed to grasp the idea of true
happiness in Islam. For one, given the plethora of grave predicaments we are
caught in, the despondency, frustration, defeatism, confusion and hurt, the
cluelessness about the future, the directionlessness and leaderlessness, the wars,
civil wars, socio-political crises and the rising monster of sectarianism-
these aren’t the happiest of times for Muslims anywhere in the world. Empathy
is an essential component of Islamic brotherhood- the fact that a Muslim must feel
the pain of another Muslim (no matter how geographically distant) as his own. I
wonder how I, as a Muslim, can clap and cheer my deep sadness away? Brecht
writes,

‘Truly I live in dark
times!...

A smooth forehead

Points to
insensitivity

He who laughsHas not yet receivedThe terrible news

What times are these, in whichA conversation
about trees is almost a crimeFor in doing so we
maintain our silence about so much wrongdoing!’

The prospect of
declining life and time and the impending oblivion of death, and the
eventuality of accountability in the eternal life is the grave and inescapable
truth one must confront. The Prophet (SAW) said, ‘If you knew what I know, you would laugh little and weep much.’

Happiness in Islam is not the be-all and end-all. It is not
to be pursued, but in its deepest sense, it comes to those who discover and
live out their purpose in life. Orwell writes, ‘Men can only be happy if they assume that the purpose of life is not
happiness.’ Fun and entertainment as temporary relaxation have a place- and
a significant one- but happiness in Islam is gained by tasting the sweetness of
faith through complete self-surrender to God. It is attained by giving and
selfless sacrifice. ‘By Time! Man is in
Loss. Except those who believe and do righteous good deeds and exhort one
another to the Truth and exhort one another to patience.’ (The
Quran)

Imam Johari quoted earlier, was perturbed by the image of
Muslims as ‘hungry and angry’, but one cannot wish that away or pretend that is
not the case by cheering and smiling away into the camera. Yes, Muslims writhe
in the throes of poverty, starvation and crippling oppression, but happiness is
attainable to those who do their small bit to help alleviate some of that.

This idea was tried to be conveyed in another video
rejoinder titled ‘Happy Muslims: Sunnah Version’. It is a brief, beautiful and
simple message that reflects the Islamic ethos of happiness- it shows clips of
Muslims rescuing and saving lives of the calamity-stricken, and ends with the
line, ‘This, my friend, is happiness.’ However, this video was blurred and
poorly made, and circulated briefly in a few closed Muslim circles. It never
went viral. And here is the very heart of the problem: the voicelessness and
disempowerment of the Muslim visionary, and that ‘the worst are filled with a passionate intensity.’ (Yeats)

Tuesday, March 18, 2014

The rising death toll, the blood and the gore hurts_ but the
searing, tearing hurt like a thorn lodged in the very heart which will outlast
the last rotting corpse is when these and other enormities are committed in the
name of the faith of Islam: a faith that declares the sanctity of innocent life
to be greater than the sanctity of the Kaabah itself... And like the humiliated
Muslim woman from Madina 1400 years ago disrobed in the marketplace had
exclaimed in distress, the believer’s bloodied heart cries out, ‘Waa Islamah!’
(Alas, for my Islam!)

When indiscriminate violence uses religious beliefs and ideals
to seek cover under, it viciously defaces those. A grotesque wrong has been
committed against Islam by extremists and fanatics, and our collective inability
to reject it in clear terms has had grave consequences. Responses to Islamist
extremism from Islamic scholars have often been ambivalent and ‘politically
correct’ rather than passionately censorious of this being done in Islam’s
name. This is for two reasons: the clergy’s preoccupation with minutiae of
fiqh, denomination and sect; and sympathy for the original motives of religious
militants who launched a defensive struggle against unwarranted occupation and
oppression against Muslims.

By all means,selfless sacrifice for a higher cause
(justice and truth) is the most beautiful that the human being is capable of:
Islam assents, through the doctrine of Jihad and the esteem in which those who
undertake it are placed. But there is a lot of murkiness out there, especially
on this side of the Durand Line. The original impetus for the defensive
struggle has spiralled into no more than naked violence for an ideologized
power struggle, and the damage done by fanatical groups in the name of Islam is
irreparable in its psycho-social consequences.

It is these psycho-social consequences that
are the gnawing, deep hurt. I struggle as a teacher on Islam, with confused
young minds full of questions, confusions, bitterness. There is deep resentment
and unease over the failure of Muslim religious leadership to provide clarity
and answers. Among those still struggling to hang on to faith, there is a
seething, muted anger over traditionalist scholars’ failure to rescue the
narrative from politicized and ideologized contemporary Jihadism and Salafist
fanaticism. There is today a clear trend of disenchantment towards religion in
Pakistan’s middle and upper middle classes, the gravity of which is yet to be
recognized, and to meet which we are utterly unprepared.

The media has often played the role of Agent
Provocateur stoking controversy around serious subjects of Islamic
jurisprudence. Sensationalist talk-shows deal in half-truths and untruths,
relaying featherweight opinions on issues of gravity, by scatterbrained demagogues
and con artists. Clarity remains elusive as young minds are confused over these
matters of complexity. Given the fact that the source of all information for
most these days is primarily if not solely the popular media, it is not
surprising that many growing up post 9/11 have come to associate religion with
regression, backwardness and even evil, thinking we would do better without it.
When you pit a madrassah-graduate religious scholar against a squealing and
irate Liberated English Speaking Woman giving him a couple of minutes to
explain away the barrage of allegations of misogyny often born of a superficial
understanding of religion and society, you make Islam seem incapable of
withstanding the secular-liberal assault; you reinforce the idea that religion
being a thing of the past, needs to be cast off for a progress that apes the
Western model: Give unto Caesar that which is Caesar's; Give unto God that
which is God's.

The struggle is not entirely about the
physical elimination of violent religious groups through military strategies.
There is a greater and more formidable challenge to face: to undo the terrible
damage that the religio-ideological underpinnings of extremist groups have done
to Muslim societies, and to hearts and minds.

Our failure to rescue the religious discourse
from its abusers who have the audacity to pose as its defenders is a huge
blemish on the pages of our history. History’s verdict shall be unrelenting and
merciless against us.

Islam in this society faces an unprecedented crisis.
And yet, hackneyed and simplistic as it may sound, in the heart of this
darkness there is a flicker of hope. At the heart of crisis is often
opportunity, if we learn the right lessons: that religious violence is a hydra
we created with our silence towards grave injustices against our own people on
the dictates of the Global Bully, thinking the unholy alliance would bring us
boons. We then nurtured this hydra and owned it with our silence towards the
crimes it committed against other innocents in the name of Islam. And now the
genie cannot be bottled back up again. Two wrongs do not make a right. Two
silences slowly kill us all, till all we hear is the haunting echo, 'Waa
Islaamah!'

A realization is slowly sinking in even
though we took far too long to learn- that extremists use religious sources to
justify their ideology, hence the responsibility on religious scholars to
spearhead a progressive interpretation of Islam rooted in its sources is great,
and that this has to come from the highest authorities on religion venerated by
the generality of Muslims. Traditional Muslim scholars need to assert, as
Sheikh Hamza Yusuf puts it, that indiscriminate violence in the name of Islam
is‘neither from religion nor sanctioned in any reading from our pre-modern
tradition. It is a modern phenomenon, and those practising it have learned it
from nihilistic elements in Western tradition who innovated from Marxism and
Asian philosophy like the kamikaze...’

The current crisis is also gradually bringing
the realization that denomination and sectarian orientation are secondary when
the attack is on the very soul of Islam, and that the reply has to be
proclaimed with a single voice. It is helping us understand- though the cost of
our unwillingness to learn has been too dear- that our condition cannot be
traced down to an externalized enemy to give us a comforting sense of ‘We the
good and true versus They the evil and false.’ Often it is more complex than
that, the evil more insidious and closer to home.

The pulpit has to assume responsibility to
set the record straight and disseminate the eclipsed tradition that has no
equivocation regarding the rejection of fanaticism and violence against
innocents, and the sanctity of human life. As the crescendo of the salvaging voice
for Islam rises, the narrative will be rescued from the unworthy and
undeserving. It has been a long, hard way but in Pakistan there is a clear
shift in public opinion against the TTP and other religious hardliners. With
their atrocious acts, these groups have dug up their own graves, as the human
heart’s innate moral criterion balks at such an inversion of basic
morality in the name of religion. In the Heart of Darkness, holding on to hope
is still possible.